There are a decent number of pedal-powered gliders, brought about largely because a well designed ultralight aircraft will fly without them, for a while at least.
Now, helicopter. It is no accident that no one has ever successfully glided a helicopter in to land. They have the aerodynamic qualities of a blue whale. Even if you could get it to work, and I honestly have no doubt that they can, at least far enough to get three meters off the ground, or whatever it was they needed. As for actually flying anywhere? Not only does manuvering seem like it would be really awkward, but the effort involved would be ridiculous.
Heh. I'd say that the only way this would work is if the SCO people could manufacture a loyal userbase, but it's more likely that they'll just hire PR people to constantly post BS, which is about the sorriest thing I can think of. I mean, say what you will about Microsoft, but there are people who really like their products.
I remember when SCO was a respected and trusted name. They did Unix, they did Linux, they were cool.
I still keep my laptop in an old Caldera laptop bag I got at the convention where they got a standing O for announcing that they were changing their name to SCO. Bag's kind of ugly now because I hacked off all the logos with my pocket knife and burned them into a little pile of sludge in an ashtray outside a building where I pitched a system that did not involve even the smallest bit of SCO. I look forward to the day when the rest of SCO looks like those charred and melted logos.
And, of course, it goes without saying that I'll be happy to post this and my many other anti-sco viewpoints 24/7 on any site they put up.
Actually, I did read the whole article. Normally I disagree that knowing how and doing are pretty much the same thing, but, in this case, I'd be surprised if it didn't make it to people sooner or later.
If you'd read the article, you'd know that the "increase in work and concentration" is brought about by the supression of the monkeys ability to look forward to the eventual reward. The reason there is no slacking and or daydreaming is because the neural mechanisims have been surpressed. At the same time, other, more useful neural mechanisims, ALSO have been surpressed.
Thus, this would only have very limited benefits for anyone working a non-repetitive job. Might do wonders for garbage collectors though. The whole thing sniffs a little of "Brave New World".
I'm tired of the tin-foil hat crowd all jumping on the bandwagon and lumping every non-psycho- libertarian candidate in the same bucket. How the fuck does crap like this make it to a damn topic anyway? Where the hell is the news?
I've had to program two different types of barcode readers that run on a modified version of original basic. A real nightmare to tie into a unified datacollection model.
The makers of these keyboard replacements always act like learning an entirely new style of typing is so easy that we should be ashamed for even thinking for a moment that it'll be hard.
In reality, most of us have spent years and years learning to type on a standard keyboard. It's a specialized skill.
Moreover, as it DOES look like an X-Box controller, and as I know how ten hours of marathon gaming can kill my hands, I wonder how they can really be sure it's MORE comfortable. I mean, my keyboard may have little to reccomend it, but, worse comes to worse, I CAN type on it without having to grip anything (Mmmmm Carpal), which would be impossible with their keyboard.
Yea, like the average congressman reads those. Some scientist with a brain so big he's pulling it behind him in a wagon "peer-reviews" it, then tells a staffer, who tells a staffer, who boils it down for his dumbass boss, who then announces it to the world, wrong.
The thing that strikes me is the scientists counterargument, "It's bad to release these things before they've been through peer review..."
To me that seems like a major cop-out. I mean, if these things are usually only available in professional journals, one can assume a well-informed readership. If the information is classified or a security risk, fine, but otherwise anyone who actually WANTS that information is probably going to be a decent judge of its value.
I think the government is doing the right thing here. Government funded research should be available to the people who fund the government.
If you'd said, "So, if the government does research on rocketry, that research should be freely accessable to citizens." it would make sense. And since the Gov't actually DID make a bit of it's rocketry research public domain...
I hate people who confuse ideas/research with manufactured goods. Sure they're related, but Jesus Christ!
I think they're a big part of a real CS degree. I mean, wtf? You just go and get certified for Windows 200X, or Version Y of some major software? That's a recipe for obsolesence. Might as well just STUDY Latin, because in ten years, more people will be using Latin than anything you'll be certified in today.
Hmmm, I see that you lack appreciation of scale (i.e. That you compare the number of people who can fit into a waffle house, 30, with the number of people who died in the twin towers, 3000+), and that you confuse the Waffle House with one of the largest malls in the world.
First of all, I agree with you vis a vis the mall of america. It's a good target. Which is my point: for terrorism to occur and be effective, there must be a GOOD TARGET.
These massive, irresponsible blanket threats thrown around with ZERO actual knowledge do nothing but detract attention and create the atmosphere of fear and doubt which the terrorists that we DIDN'T elect have not yet been successful at creating.
Yellow, yellow, orange, yellow, yellow, orange, yellow, RED RED WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE, yellow, yellow...
Are we supposed to continually crap our shorts because they arbitrarily raise and lower some spurious "threat status?" Yea, there may even BE threats, but, you know what, they are at about the same level they've been at for the last 10 years or longer.
Hell, even the rednecks aren't panicing anymore, and it doesn't take much to get them going about "Terrorist Threats." I moved down to Georgia in 2002, from being in New Jersey, and working in NYC, and I had to continually bite my tongue to keep from laughing in the faces of all these people who were forever telling me, "It could happen right here." Well sure it could, but crashing a cropduster into a Waffle House isn't going to have the same kind of effect.
And if people down HERE are sick of it, I can only imagine what its like in the rest of the country. There are only so many times you can cry wolf, and still be believed.
Heat is solvable with next generation cooling (i.e peltier or cryo...or just a really big freaking fan) but the performance increase will have to validate the extra effort.
The great thing about circuit boards is that they're cheap and easy to replace, so the maintenance gains they're talking about are not as great as they claim. It's also a VERY well understood tech; Sun takes a substantial risk by going in a totally different direction. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
I can't count the number of times I've needed a silly ass database app to store a tiny amount of needed data on a site that has no other need for databases. These things are useful in their own right, because you don't want to HAVE to set up Oracle or DB2 when all you need is this.
Nice to see IBM giving to opensource, even if it is only a minor product.
I didn't want to bore everyone with "Moron User II: The Dat from Hell". Let's just say that, just because you have a backup, doesn't mean it's trivial to get the whole thing going again, even IF the backup restores perfectly.
Actually saw a guy do "rm -fr/" on a live server once. What a moron. What he was trying to do was "rm -fr/backup" but he hit the space bar and the 'b' key at the same time, and then hit return without checking for even an instant, so what he got was "rm -fr / backup". I was screaming at him for almost a minute before he realized what he'd done. A weeks work down the drain.
Man, can you imagine the benefits at university alone? A twenty credit hard science book load that can be put in the back pocket? I STILL have mangled vertebrae from that crap.
There will always be a market for GOOD books in paper form. I think, eventually, that's pretty much all we'll be able to buy in paper form.
My book collection is about 50% "good" books, that is to say, useful, needed, worthwhile books. The other half is mostly genre fiction and other types of pulp. Note this is not the proportion in which I buy books, but space contraints require pulp purges on a regular basis.
This is where eBooks would come in handy for me. I'd LOVE to condense my pulp collection to a hard disk.
I think the iPod comparison is inapt, however. We don't use books the same way we use music. If you buy a CD, you don't just randomly loan it to people after you've listened to it once, not REALLY caring if you ever get it back. We'll need a format that accepts the reality of book use.
Never underestimate the fact that you're 25% likely to get it right if you just guess. I think a lot of non-techies understand that techies like to add extra e's, p's, and 33's to things.
...is Social Engineering. Or Con Artistry depending on your tastes.
The average non-techie wouldn't know what a "Phish" scam was if it was sitting on their face, any more than they would know what a phreak was or why hacker, cracker, and coder all mean very different things.
I agree with GGParent. This crap should never have made it into the media. They're only going to be screwing it up.
There are a decent number of pedal-powered gliders, brought about largely because a well designed ultralight aircraft will fly without them, for a while at least.
Now, helicopter. It is no accident that no one has ever successfully glided a helicopter in to land. They have the aerodynamic qualities of a blue whale. Even if you could get it to work, and I honestly have no doubt that they can, at least far enough to get three meters off the ground, or whatever it was they needed. As for actually flying anywhere? Not only does manuvering seem like it would be really awkward, but the effort involved would be ridiculous.
Heh. I'd say that the only way this would work is if the SCO people could manufacture a loyal userbase, but it's more likely that they'll just hire PR people to constantly post BS, which is about the sorriest thing I can think of. I mean, say what you will about Microsoft, but there are people who really like their products.
I remember when SCO was a respected and trusted name. They did Unix, they did Linux, they were cool.
I still keep my laptop in an old Caldera laptop bag I got at the convention where they got a standing O for announcing that they were changing their name to SCO. Bag's kind of ugly now because I hacked off all the logos with my pocket knife and burned them into a little pile of sludge in an ashtray outside a building where I pitched a system that did not involve even the smallest bit of SCO. I look forward to the day when the rest of SCO looks like those charred and melted logos.
And, of course, it goes without saying that I'll be happy to post this and my many other anti-sco viewpoints 24/7 on any site they put up.
Actually, I did read the whole article. Normally I disagree that knowing how and doing are pretty much the same thing, but, in this case, I'd be surprised if it didn't make it to people sooner or later.
If you'd read the article, you'd know that the "increase in work and concentration" is brought about by the supression of the monkeys ability to look forward to the eventual reward. The reason there is no slacking and or daydreaming is because the neural mechanisims have been surpressed. At the same time, other, more useful neural mechanisims, ALSO have been surpressed.
Thus, this would only have very limited benefits for anyone working a non-repetitive job. Might do wonders for garbage collectors though. The whole thing sniffs a little of "Brave New World".
I'm tired of the tin-foil hat crowd all jumping on the bandwagon and lumping every non-psycho- libertarian candidate in the same bucket. How the fuck does crap like this make it to a damn topic anyway? Where the hell is the news?
I've had to program two different types of barcode readers that run on a modified version of original basic. A real nightmare to tie into a unified datacollection model.
The makers of these keyboard replacements always act like learning an entirely new style of typing is so easy that we should be ashamed for even thinking for a moment that it'll be hard.
In reality, most of us have spent years and years learning to type on a standard keyboard. It's a specialized skill.
Moreover, as it DOES look like an X-Box controller, and as I know how ten hours of marathon gaming can kill my hands, I wonder how they can really be sure it's MORE comfortable. I mean, my keyboard may have little to reccomend it, but, worse comes to worse, I CAN type on it without having to grip anything (Mmmmm Carpal), which would be impossible with their keyboard.
...to forget how to program in original basic, I thank you.
Now, get to work on bar codes!
I'm going to go buy a card writer, and make a million selling counterfeit Kinkos cards. BWHAHAHA!
Yea, like the average congressman reads those. Some scientist with a brain so big he's pulling it behind him in a wagon "peer-reviews" it, then tells a staffer, who tells a staffer, who boils it down for his dumbass boss, who then announces it to the world, wrong.
The thing that strikes me is the scientists counterargument, "It's bad to release these things before they've been through peer review..."
To me that seems like a major cop-out. I mean, if these things are usually only available in professional journals, one can assume a well-informed readership. If the information is classified or a security risk, fine, but otherwise anyone who actually WANTS that information is probably going to be a decent judge of its value.
I think the government is doing the right thing here. Government funded research should be available to the people who fund the government.
False argument.
If you'd said, "So, if the government does research on rocketry, that research should be freely accessable to citizens." it would make sense. And since the Gov't actually DID make a bit of it's rocketry research public domain...
I hate people who confuse ideas/research with manufactured goods. Sure they're related, but Jesus Christ!
I think they're a big part of a real CS degree. I mean, wtf? You just go and get certified for Windows 200X, or Version Y of some major software? That's a recipe for obsolesence. Might as well just STUDY Latin, because in ten years, more people will be using Latin than anything you'll be certified in today.
Hmmm, I see that you lack appreciation of scale (i.e. That you compare the number of people who can fit into a waffle house, 30, with the number of people who died in the twin towers, 3000+), and that you confuse the Waffle House with one of the largest malls in the world.
First of all, I agree with you vis a vis the mall of america. It's a good target. Which is my point: for terrorism to occur and be effective, there must be a GOOD TARGET.
These massive, irresponsible blanket threats thrown around with ZERO actual knowledge do nothing but detract attention and create the atmosphere of fear and doubt which the terrorists that we DIDN'T elect have not yet been successful at creating.
Just my opinion.
Yellow, yellow, orange, yellow, yellow, orange, yellow, RED RED WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE, yellow, yellow...
Are we supposed to continually crap our shorts because they arbitrarily raise and lower some spurious "threat status?" Yea, there may even BE threats, but, you know what, they are at about the same level they've been at for the last 10 years or longer.
Hell, even the rednecks aren't panicing anymore, and it doesn't take much to get them going about "Terrorist Threats." I moved down to Georgia in 2002, from being in New Jersey, and working in NYC, and I had to continually bite my tongue to keep from laughing in the faces of all these people who were forever telling me, "It could happen right here." Well sure it could, but crashing a cropduster into a Waffle House isn't going to have the same kind of effect.
And if people down HERE are sick of it, I can only imagine what its like in the rest of the country. There are only so many times you can cry wolf, and still be believed.
No lie! I can't believe people are that STUPID!
I mean, with security through obscurity, you have to at least make sure it's not making it to freaking google.
Heat is solvable with next generation cooling (i.e peltier or cryo...or just a really big freaking fan) but the performance increase will have to validate the extra effort.
The great thing about circuit boards is that they're cheap and easy to replace, so the maintenance gains they're talking about are not as great as they claim. It's also a VERY well understood tech; Sun takes a substantial risk by going in a totally different direction. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.
I can't count the number of times I've needed a silly ass database app to store a tiny amount of needed data on a site that has no other need for databases. These things are useful in their own right, because you don't want to HAVE to set up Oracle or DB2 when all you need is this.
Nice to see IBM giving to opensource, even if it is only a minor product.
I didn't want to bore everyone with "Moron User II: The Dat from Hell". Let's just say that, just because you have a backup, doesn't mean it's trivial to get the whole thing going again, even IF the backup restores perfectly.
Actually saw a guy do "rm -fr /" on a live server once. What a moron. What he was trying to do was "rm -fr /backup" but he hit the space bar and the 'b' key at the same time, and then hit return without checking for even an instant, so what he got was "rm -fr / backup". I was screaming at him for almost a minute before he realized what he'd done. A weeks work down the drain.
It's like printing money. You can do it, but it's not trivial. You need hardware, and specialized knowledge.
On the other hand, running a piece of ware on yer iPaq which can rewrite codes within 10 feet...thats pretty trivial.
Why the hell isn't this thread about THAT article?
Man, can you imagine the benefits at university alone? A twenty credit hard science book load that can be put in the back pocket? I STILL have mangled vertebrae from that crap.
It'll never happen.
There will always be a market for GOOD books in paper form. I think, eventually, that's pretty much all we'll be able to buy in paper form.
My book collection is about 50% "good" books, that is to say, useful, needed, worthwhile books. The other half is mostly genre fiction and other types of pulp. Note this is not the proportion in which I buy books, but space contraints require pulp purges on a regular basis.
This is where eBooks would come in handy for me. I'd LOVE to condense my pulp collection to a hard disk.
I think the iPod comparison is inapt, however. We don't use books the same way we use music. If you buy a CD, you don't just randomly loan it to people after you've listened to it once, not REALLY caring if you ever get it back. We'll need a format that accepts the reality of book use.
Never underestimate the fact that you're 25% likely to get it right if you just guess. I think a lot of non-techies understand that techies like to add extra e's, p's, and 33's to things.
...is Social Engineering. Or Con Artistry depending on your tastes.
The average non-techie wouldn't know what a "Phish" scam was if it was sitting on their face, any more than they would know what a phreak was or why hacker, cracker, and coder all mean very different things.
I agree with GGParent. This crap should never have made it into the media. They're only going to be screwing it up.